Non-standard Combat Surface

So, everybody who plays in my every-other-week group probably shouldn't read this one.

It's part of the adventure I'm writing up for a one-shot. So ....


















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So here's the situation. I'm writing up an Eberron adventure which, in the spirit of Indiana Jones, sends a hapless contingent of a warforged army down into a cavern after a Karrnathi necromancer and his cohort. Of course, the cavern leads to an ancient draconic temple, where a series of cunning traps and strange markings are found.

One particular room has a floor marked, conveniently enough, in 10' squares. Waiting on one side of the room is a portion of the necromancer's cohort. The necromancer, who made it through ahead of the party, will reactivate the trap that cost him several skeletons on his first pass through.*

The trap is this:

Each round, the 10' squares in the room shift. They start by all dropping 10'. After that, they begin shifting up and down. The room has 10' high ceilings, normally, meaning that two shifts up are required to send whatever is on a given pedastal into the ceiling. The round after a pedastal hits the ceiling, it drops 20' and begins the cycle again. Not every pedastal moves from the "down" position.

If you are on a pedestal as it moves up, you will need to make a Balance check to remain standing (probably in the realm of DC 10). If you're about to be squished, you get a Reflex save (DC 15? 17?) to roll off a random side (possibly suffering falling damage). If you fail your Reflex save, you are affected as though by a "stone blocks from ceiling" trap (4 or 5d6 damage), and are pinned until the column moves again (i.e., it's not an instant death trap - I don't care for those).

So, my question is this:

Once the room is set in motion, what is the best way to determine when during a round the columns move?

I've considered a couple possibilities.

1) The room rolls initiative at the beginning of battle, and the columns move each round at that initiative count.

2) The room automatically goes either first or last in the initiative count.

3) The room rolls for initiative every round.

4) Something I haven't thought of yet.

I'll leave my thoughts out for now, since I'm interested in seeing how others would handle such a room.

* - Note: The room isn't actually a trap in the classical sense of the word. It's actually just part of the machinery that runs the draconic orrery downstairs, which the necromancer is busy fiddling with.
 

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I'd determine ahead of time the series of patterns of blocks. Five sounds like a nice number. Then just loop continually through the series on the trap's initiative.

Btw things might start to get wonky if they ready actions to move when the trap goes.
 

Wow - that's almost exactly like a trap room I used a couple years ago. I had that set up as a room with a checkerboard pattern, and the black squares and white squares moved up or down together. I had the movement of the columns start each round and rolled up the specific positions beforehand, which saved me a lot of time in game. I also had all characters roll ten Balance checks each at the start of the session, long before they reached the room, so I could quickly run through them as needed. It wasn't a particularly difficult situation - at least not till the four hellhounds appeared :]
 

I'd go with start of each round (if you want the movement to be steady and therefore somewhat plannable for the characters) or generate an initiative count every round (for a more random movement).

Bye
Thanee
 

I'd have the room go last, so the intrepid band all have a chance to get off before getting crushed.(And to cost them move actions, rather than saves, move actions favor the bad guys more.)
 


blargney the second said:
I'd determine ahead of time the series of patterns of blocks. Five sounds like a nice number. Then just loop continually through the series on the trap's initiative.


shilsen said:
Wow - that's almost exactly like a trap room I used a couple years ago. I had that set up as a room with a checkerboard pattern, and the black squares and white squares moved up or down together. I had the movement of the columns start each round and rolled up the specific positions beforehand, which saved me a lot of time in game.

For the record, I've got that planned out already. I'm printing up several scale-appropriate pages, each one colored differently (blue for normal floor height, red for ceiling, white for down), and will switch them out whenever the room moves, transferring the minis across.

Trying to do that mid-game would be a *nightmare*. :D

A fixed initiative count worries me because it seems like it will have a more pronounced effect on those who go "before." For instance, in the first round, anyone who moves before the room is set in motion will have an advantage over those who move after the room is set in motion (because they won't need to make balance checks, etc.). This advantage will shift in the 2nd and later rounds, as those who go just after the room moves will be able to more quickly recover from its effects - acting while the opposition is still prone, for instance.

A random initiative count has problems of its own. Chiefly, in round 1 it could go last and in round 2 go first, denying those knocked prone a chance to react and slamming them more or less helplessly into the ceiling.

I'm therefore pretty sure that a fixed initiative count is the way to go. I'm considering having the room go last in initiative.

So, shilsen, how did your players like the room when you ran it? What other hints and tips can you offer?
 

Patryn of Elvenshae said:
For the record, I've got that planned out already. I'm printing up several scale-appropriate pages, each one colored differently (blue for normal floor height, red for ceiling, white for down), and will switch them out whenever the room moves, transferring the minis across.
If you are going to transfer minis, you may want to conder finding some blocks closely scaled to run the encounter in. No block for beneath the floor level, one block for floor level, and two blocks for above, and touching ceiling... Then you can shift the blocks around in a pattern. This would give the players the ability to see where each of ther characters are and where their enemies are.

Last in the round also sounds best because everyone will have acted, then the blocks move. Don't forget about Attacks of Opportunity. There will be a time where characters will be on different blocks, and one of the blocks move, therefore moving the character, therfore provoking the attack.

Also, don't forget falling damage from when a block hits the ceiling and then drops, it would be really dramatic to have the block pull into the floor, causing a resulting fall from someone who was just squashed...

Sounds like fun!

Aluvial
 

Aluvial said:
If you are going to transfer minis, you may want to conder finding some blocks closely scaled to run the encounter in. No block for beneath the floor level, one block for floor level, and two blocks for above, and touching ceiling... Then you can shift the blocks around in a pattern. This would give the players the ability to see where each of ther characters are and where their enemies are.

That's a good idea!

I'm not sure if I'll be able to find 2" square blocks, but I'm not running this any time soon, so maybe I'll be able to ...

Thanks, Aluvial!
 

I'd go with random initiative each round (for the blocks only), just to give it a dramatic edge. More tension = good, IMO.
 

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